


Helga - A Friend In Need

by DixieDale



Category: Clan O'Donnell - Fandom, Hogan's Heroes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 13:04:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18993211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DixieDale/pseuds/DixieDale
Summary: "Hello," the lovely young blonde woman said, hesitantly.  "You don't know me, but . . ."  And she stopped.  It had all seemed so easy when she'd planned it out in her mind;  now, after traveling so far, standing on the threshold of this house, she felt like a total fool.  She drew a deep breath, and stumbled out with it.  "I think my father might be here?"





	Helga - A Friend In Need

**Author's Note:**

> During the first season of Hogan's Heroes, Helga was Klink's secretary, sometimes romantic interest of Hogan, and occasional accomplice in the monkey business that took place in and around Stalag 13. Why she left, only to be replaced by Fraulein Hilda, was never explained. Til now.

1943

Fraulein Helga stood in his doorway, hesitant smile on her face. "Do you have a moment, Sergeant Wilson?"

He'd ushered her in, had her take a chair. She'd been in here plenty of times, taking his reports, slipping him a few little oddments she'd 'found' to help with the sick and injured, though how and where you 'found' some of those items he'd be most interested in knowing. She'd even been in there a time or two or three to smile and say a few kind words to one or the other of Hogan's command crew when they'd come a cropper in some nonsense or the other.

"I need help. I think I'm pregnant." 

He sat there, stunned. Well, it wasn't the usual complaint dished up on his plate, he had to admit that. A prison camp of all men just didn't lend itself to statements of that sort.

That she had come to him, one of the prisoners, instead of to one of the doctors in town was telling. Hell, he wasn't even a doctor, just a medic, though he'd started his medical training before the war, had intended to finish if he ever made it home. Surely if she'd felt she had any choice she would have gone to a German doctor, even if she had traveled farther afield than the local town. That could mean several things, but his mind snapped to the most likely.

"Is it Hogan's?" he asked abruptly, without even thinking. Then realizing how that sounded, harsh when he hadn't meant it that way at all, knowing what life, what the war could bring to a woman, often unbidden, even one as relatively protected as Klink's secretary, he flushed and started to apologize. His seeming judgement wasn't of her so much as their senior prisoner of war, and even that was rather hypocritical of him, he decided.

Helga had tried to answer, but by now she was crying too hard, and when he went to her, she half fell against him. He didn't inquire further, just folded his arms around her as she sobbed into his chest. Later, as she sniffed, then blew her nose, she finally answered him. 

"I don't know. I don't think so. I hope not. Oh, God, I pray not!" She'd looked horrified, along with looking even more frightened than before. 

She'd looked down at her lap, then drew in her breath resolutely. "Can you help me?" 

Such a simple question, but one that could mean any number of things. He wasn't naive. His grandfather had been a doctor, and had told Scotty story after story of being the only doctor in a far-flung community of farms and tiny villages and towns. He understood full well that help could wear a variety of coats, and not just in wartime.

He looked into her desperate eyes, and answered the only way he could. "I'll try. You tell me what you want, and I'll try to help."

It was a relief, he had to admit, to discover that she didn't want him to help her put an end to that flicker within her, the flicker that might, possibly, eventually result in new life. Well, that wasn't near certain, that new life would come into being, even in peacetime, and in wartime, even less so. Often, there WAS no new life, sometimes by fate, some times by intercession. 

Of course, he had to admit as well, that sometimes that was best. He remembered his grandfather once again, telling of the farm women who'd delivered a babe a year for eleven years, til their bodies were worn down, til they couldn't have survived another birth and retained any semblance of health, not enough to tend the children they already had, yet the twelfth year promised no different. Or the fourteen year-old who'd received the nighttime attentions of her father and older brothers once too often before she'd fled the ranch she'd known her entire life, to seek his help and his refuge. Or the bar girl, or the shop girl for that matter, unable to deflect the drunken drovers unwilling to take 'no' for an answer OR to take any precautions. 

Frankly, he wasn't all that sure how to go about the task anyway, if that was what she'd wanted; he'd never been called upon to help in that way, though he'd delivered a baby or two in his days before the war. 

Oh, there were many stories, and his grandfather had been brutally honest, with those stories as well as all the others, with the young boy who looked at his grandfather with such shining eyes. 

Scotty's mother had protested, but his father had just shaken his head. 

"Martha, if the boy wants to be a doctor, he needs to know all of it. It's not all the glory of having delivered the most babies in two counties, or having saved the sheriff from a gunshot wound, or pulling a whole town through a diptheria outbreak. It's also the ones you help that no one ever knows about, the ones you can't save, the ones who you aren't sure you want to save but try to anyway, never knowing for sure the right or wrong of it all. I never had the courage to follow in dad's footsteps; I just wasn't that brave. If Scotty is, then more power to him, and I'll give him my blessing. I just hope dad can teach him enough that the boy can reach the right decision."

 

Now, Scotty listened as she explained that she wanted help in getting away, away from the questions, the speculation, the reaction she expected from Hogan once he knew. She was obviously frightened of what Hogan might do if he found out, and not just Hogan.

"Oh, not the Kommandant. He's really very kind, when he's allowed to be. But he wouldn't have any idea of how to help me, and you know as soon as Major Hochstetter found out, there would be questions and much more, and I just can't face that."

Scotty had looked the question, though not asked it, and Helga had shuddered. "No, Hochstetter has never approached me, which is more than I can say for many of the officers who've come here." She flushed, but Scotty knew as well as she that saying no to those visitors was a risky business indeed.

"But with his suspicions about Colonel Hogan and his men, his contempt for the Kommandant, I can't risk him jumping to conclusions, thinking I may have damaging information, or even just pretending he thinks I may have, just in order to trap them. Please, CAN you help?" 

Her blue eyes were pleading with him as he considered what she'd said. He'd always liked Helga; she went out of her way to be kind to the men, while not teasing them, not flaunting her pretty but unavailable self in front of them. He knew she was instrumental in keeping Klink's office above water, how much things here depended on her making certain information available to Hogan's operation. He'd just never realized how intelligent she truly was, and how much she probably understood about the situation in camp.

Avoiding the subject of 'who', he proceeded on to the next question of 'when'. "Do you have any idea of how far along you are?" and he was relieved when she'd seemed to relax.

"If it is as I think, I hope, I am almost eleven weeks along; well, eleven weeks precisely. I have never been regular, even from the beginning, you see, and with the short rations and everything else, it is not uncommon for me to skip a month or two, perhaps more. I knew I wasn't feeling just right, and although there could have been many reasons, somehow, yesterday, I just KNEW."

{"Eleven weeks. Alright that should put her . . ."} and his mind skittered, remembering what had been going on in camp eleven weeks ago. "Eleven weeks," he repeated. "The hotel, the bombing, when . . .?", his look suddenly more apprehensive than before, raising his eyes to see her nodding, the words not necessary, not now.

{"Shit! If it was THEN, Hogan will go ballistic! He's always thought of Helga as 'his', at least as far as the camp is concerned. It being one of the visiting officers, maybe even one of the guards, maybe someone in town, he could maybe shrug that off, but one of this own men? Jesus! She's right to be scared, and not just for herself." 

He had to ask, though, as unwilling as he was to consider the possibility. He thought he knew the men here, at least most of them, especially those in what was thought of as 'the Command Crew'. 

As far as what he knew about that long two days and nights, four men from Hogan's unit - Newkirk, Olsen, LeBeau and Carter - along with Hogan himself, had been there, along with the hotel guests and the others in attendance of that social evening. LeBeau had been acting as chef, in the kitchens, the other three as waiters. Helga had been there both as a reward for faithful service AND to bolster Klink's esteem. Why she hadn't been at Klink's side, along with Hogan, when it all hit the fan, he didn't know. He just knew that when they'd dug a battered and bruised Klink out, Hogan had been close beside, but Helga hadn't been. 

He hadn't been there, didn't know the precise details of that nightmarish ordeal. That Helga, the other four men, had been trapped, hadn't been dug out til the following day, that he knew, but exactly who had been trapped where, who might had ended up with Helga in the shattered remains of the hotel annex after the bombing, he didn't know. His mind twisted trying to make sense of this whole situation, and he asked the next thing that came to his mind.

"Was it consensual, Helga?" more suprised than anything to have that elicit a tiny giggle from the young woman.

"On whose part, Sergeant?" 

She gave him the first real smile he'd seen since the conversation began, obviously enjoying that look of shock on his face.

"Yes, it was consensual, on both our parts. A total surprise on both our parts as well, I must admit. It was dark and smoky and eventually very, very cold, and the torn timbers surrounded us, and I was frightened, so very frightened. And he was so kind, and was comforting me, telling me it was going to be alright, we'd make it out alright, and then started telling me stories to keep my spirits up, and well, it just seemed the most natural thing in the world right then. I'm not sure either of us really believed it afterwards; we never spoke of it, certainly. I don't think we've spoken more than two dozen words since, nothing that would not have been spoken before."

Scotty snorted, {"somehow that doesn't surprise me all that much. I can't quite imagine how that conversation would have gone. Of course, I can't quite imagine the whole situation either, no matter which man I drop into the scene! Well, maybe Newkirk. Yes, I really COULD see Newkirk in that role."}. 

Not knowing the full of it, though, he pushed down the twinge of annoyance he felt, knowing Newkirk had that effect on him more often than not. 

{"And besides, she DID say it was consensual, whichever one of them it was."}. 

He refused to admit to himself that her steady 'both parts' reassured him, let him erase from his reluctant mind that painful image of her being the victim to not just one, but perhaps two or even all of them. No, just one man, and she obviously didn't feel she was a victim, except perhaps of fate.

He left her with a promise he'd see what could be done, told her to just keep it together til he got back with her, and she'd nodded resolutely. She couldn't afford to wait for long, but she'd seen enough of the medic to trust him to be honest with her. If there was no way out, then she'd rethink her options; for now she'd wait.

 

It hadn't been easy, and it had involved more falsehoods than he'd ever dreamed he'd have to tell involving a story with far more fiction than truth, but he'd managed, with a little help. Okay, with a lot of very careful, very judicious help.

Everything in place, including her cousin Hilda's promise (indeed, insistence) that she would present herself as a potential secretary to the Kommandant within the week, Helga braced herself for the final dash to what would hopefully be freedom. She'd packed the few things she would take with her, but spent most of her non-working hours sitting in silence on the edge of her bed, her hand cupped over her abdomen, trying to know, to understand what lay within. Praying that what she'd told the Sergeant was the truth, that it had been that bombing in town and what followed, not the episode with Hogan in the Kommandant's car three weeks before that. 

{"But surely, if I was three weeks further along, I would be able to tell. Please, let it have happened in town, please!!"}. 

There had been a time, early on, when the idea of bearing Robert Hogan's child would have brought a smile to her face, no matter the impracticality, considering the situation. Now, knowing him ever so much better, the thought made her gag with revulsion, with fear of who or what such a child might be. If it had been like a fairy tale she'd once read, where she could petition the gods that the child partake of her blood only, she would have, but that wasn't an option. All she could do was pray that the child had been fathered by someone quite different, someone whose child she could look at and smile and love.

Helga had turned in her immediate resignation, shedding a few wistful tears at saying goodbye to Klink, Schultz and Langenscheidt, Dieter Van and a few others. She'd pressed a quick farewell kiss to various cheeks, including a stunned Peter Newkirk and Andrew Carter and James Kinchloe and Louis LeBeau who were lingering on the porch outside the Kommandant's office as she left, and was gone before a gap-jawed Klink could pick his monocle up off the floor. Hogan never knew she was gone til his men dashed in to report the occurrence. 

Kinch had been the one to break the news. "Helga's gone, Colonel! For good! Just turned in her papers to Klink and left!"

The letter Scotty gave him, carefully couched in terms that would offer no help should it fall into the wrong hands, explained everything most clearly. Of course, it was made mostly of whole cloth, (not that he was to know that), but still, it was most clear. 

Hogan read it through once again, annoyance vying for anger and frustration at what she'd told him. That she'd written him a letter {"a goddamned letter??!"} instead of telling him face to face. Face to face, where he could have dissuaded her from her intended, ever so inconvenient, actions. No, just a letter saying that Helga was on her way to somewhere, not specified, with her childhood sweetheart, name unspecified as well. That it was an opportunity she could not turn away from. That she would always remember him, of course, and would think of him often. And, that she would be sending another secretary to the camp, if possible, quite soon - her cousin Hilda, 'who is much like our jolly friend, knowing when to see and hear nothing.' 

The men heard him cursing through the door, then a crash as something hit the wall, and determined to keep their heads down til he cooled off. 

"Expect 'e'll be taking on a few more of the outside jobs now, w'at with the absence of the lovely 'elga," Newkirk muttered to the others, and that got a few nods of agreement. Hogan didn't like to do without for very long, they all knew that, and Newkirk cast an uneasy glance back toward the officer's quarters. He'd miss Helga being around as much if not more than the rest of them. Well, they all would, for, as a woeful Andrew Carter had exclaimed, "she's such a nice girl!"

"What am I to do now?" Klink almost wailed, knowing full well how things managed to run as well as they did, already anticipating the shambles once Helga's capable slender fingers were no longer in control of the office. He could already feel Burkhalter's hot breath on the back of his neck, demanding reports Klink had never even heard of, though he'd probably been signing them all along.

Karl Langenscheidt glanced over at an almost as distraught Sergeant Schultz. "We will manage, Kommandant. I have filled in for Fraulein Helga sometimes, enough I know where things are kept, and her calendar is up to date, as is her monthly to-do list. Surely we can find another secretary soon."

Schultz looked at Karl like he'd gone mad. {"WE??? WE can manage? I know nothing! Nothing!"}. 

Well, yes, he knew more than he said, probably far more than he even consciously knew. There had been something about the Fraulein, something he recognized from his own Gretchen. {"That she should leave, yes, that is probably best. But we will miss her. It was good to have a pretty girl around, and one so nice, so kind."}. He hoped she would fare well, though he thought it likely he would never knows for sure.

Karl Langenscheidt and Dieter Van had shared a quiet smoke after evening roll call that night. 

"Do you know where she is headed?" Langenscheidt asked. No, he doubted she had told the other soldier that, but Dieter Van had a way of knowing things, things he should have no reasonable way of knowing.

"In a general sort of a way," Dieter had admitted, but said no more, and Karl thought that was probably wise. They had done what they could for her, would miss her certainly.

She had been a friend to them, they had sincere affection for her, and wished her nothing but good. But they knew their good wishes would only go so far, and did nothing toward feeding an empty belly, and neither believed the 'childhood sweetheart' story. Therefore, both men, along with Sergeant Schultz, had cobbled together whatever they had in the way of ready funds, which wasn't very much, and had made sure to tuck that into her satchel before she left. They hadn't been the only ones, of course; there were a few others, from the other side of the camp, who'd done the same. If more had known, more would probably have done so as well, but no one else had known, just those involved in making this possible.

And it wasn't only money Dieter Van had given her. No, in that uncanny way he had, he'd stood across from her in a moment alone in the office, and, after looking at her quietly for a couple of minutes offered "and she shall be as beautiful as you, your daughter, though bearing much of her father within her. Well, perhaps her 'fathers', for she will have more than one, each giving her something of himself, something good. A joy, a treasure, shall she be to you, Helga. Keep that thought in mind during your journey. We will meet again, I believe; I shall look forward to meeting her as well."

She was left with little to say, except a quiet, heartfelt, "thank you, Dieter. Bless you." She had told him nothing, but with Dieter Van, you didn't NEED to tell him things; he just knew, and sometimes what he knew was frightening, sometimes comforting. She was just glad that this time, for her, it had been the latter.

 

1964

"Hello," she'd said, hesitantly. "You don't know me, but . . ." 

And she stopped. It had all seemed so easy when she'd planned it out in her mind; now, standing on the threshold of this house, she felt like a total fool. She drew a deep breath, and stumbled out with it. "I think my father might be here?" 

Somehow she hadn't considered this, was suddenly appalled at how her arrival would possibly affect others. To find a daughter you never knew you had on your doorstep was one thing, but to have to explain said daughter to a wife? When the laughter and chattering of children came from inside, she wanted to turn and run, wanted to have never undertaken this journey.

 

Oh, she'd thought about it for years, but when she was very young, her mother had never told her anything but the first name of the man who had fathered her. Only that "he was a good man, a kind man, liebchen. You remind me of him in many ways."

When she was older, old enough to be thinking thoughts of love, old enough to ask, Helga had told her, "no, I didn't love him, not the way you mean love. There WAS a man I loved in those days, at least, thought I loved. Perhaps I was overly naive to think he might love me too, though that did not last long, that innocence. Remember when I warned you away from Herr Meier, what I told you about him? About charming, handsome, manipulative men? Well, the one I so foolishly thought I loved was like him, only a hundred times more so. But your father, no. He was kind to me, at a time when I needed kindness more than anything else." The gentle smile on Helga's face told her the truth of that, though at thirteen, kindness didn't seem nearly so important or as exciting as love.

Of course, she had a stepfather, one who'd married her mother when she had been less than three years old. He too was a kind man, and she never doubted his love for her and for her mother. Dieter Van had been a guard at the camp, had helped her mother when she needed to get away. And now, in his love, he had never protested her deciding to meet her natural father, to meet the man her mother AND her stepfather said was responsible for her smile and a few of her more memorable traits. He had worried, perhaps, when she'd set out on her own, but he'd understood, and was waiting at home for her return. Her mother was gone by then, a sudden fever, and all of a sudden finding, seeing her natural father seemed extremely important.

She had a godfather as well, of course, and she had already made that journey, visiting with him in his home, meeting his wife. But that had not been like this; after all, he had written her over the years, had taken an interest in her education, her welfare. It was because of him she had decided she wanted to become a doctor.

When she'd told Scotty Wilson of her intention of searching out her natural father, the American had grown very still, then questioned. "Helga told you everything then?"

"Everything? I doubt that. You know how private a person mother was. But she told me of the camp, the men there. Oh, so many stories, and many of them far beyond what should seem possible. She would laugh, say "and Sergeant Schultz was right when he called it monkey business. It was so grim, in so many ways, and I expect much of what seemed levity and general mischief had an ulterior motive, but still, there were times they made me laugh with their antics. Just as there were times when they made my heart falter with their foolheartedness, their bravery." She admired them so much, the ones she called 'the boys'. Their leader, he was the one she thought she loved, wasn't he? But she says he wasn't my father."

Scotty looked at her, her blond hair, her cornflower blue eyes, and once again saw Helga, sometimes the one spot of normality in the camp. "He was, at least to the first part, for awhile. And no, he wasn't your father." He hesitated, but then added, "and your mother was very glad of that, I believe. No, I KNOW she was." 

It didn't seem necessary to repeat what Helga had told him in their early correspondence, that if she'd seen Hogan in the babe's eyes and face, she'd have been tempted to smother her daughter in her crib for fear she'd inherited more than his looks. No, not necessary, the girl didn't need to know that, especially with Hogan being dead now.

"She said he was very brave, very cunning, the leader; that he could charm a hawk from the skies if he wanted to." 

She looked a little wistful, all that seeming something it would be very nice to attribute to a father, but then remembered what else her mother had told her, after reading the obituary she had been sent. 

"She said that, at first, she had thought him a benevolent and charming wolf in sheep's clothing, but eventually came to think of him as one of the snakes in the enclosure at the zoo, one of the very rare ones that killed both by constriction AND by poison. Only that he didn't kill, at least not often and not in the open, but just possessed his victim and stole their souls if he was able."

She gave an uneasy laugh, "she made him sound almost diabolical at times, and yet, she said in some ways she still loved him, or at least something perhaps similar to love, that she had never stopped. She said that he had indeed taken a part of her soul, and she had been unable to retrieve it. It was odd, though, when she read his obituary, when you sent it to her, it was like she took the first truly deep breath she'd taken in years. "I think perhaps the coils will loosen now, liebchen; I thought they never would." I don't understand how you can love someone, yet fear them the way she did HIM."

Scotty had smiled sympathetically. "I know, it's hard to understand. But I guess you had to be there to really do that." At least maybe. He'd been there; he still had trouble understanding a hell of a lot about what had happened in that camp.

Her voice was soft, "I asked her once if she was disappointed I wasn't his, and oh, the look on her face! It was one of pure horror! She told me she thanked the Good God every day that I wasn't; that she had feared so much in the beginning that I was, and didn't know how she could bear it, but that when she looked into my eyes, saw my face, my smile, she knew different, saw my father in me, and she wanted to go to the nearest church and light candles enough to light up the entire altar in thanks."

He nodded gently at the young woman, hardly more than a girl. "She loved you very much, you know. And she's right. You both were much better off with the father you had. He was, he is, a good man. One of the best. And not just him. You have Dieter as well."

She'd smiled and laid her head on his shoulder, "and you. I have you as well," and he'd smiled in return, hugged her close.

"And you have me as well."

 

Haven:

A hesitant knock at the door resulted in firm footsteps coming closer, and then a woman stood there, seeming surprised to see a stranger at her door. "Yes?"

"Hello," she'd said, hesitantly. "You don't know me, but . . ." 

And she stopped. It had all seemed so easy when she'd planned it out in her mind; now, standing on the threshold of this house, she felt like a total fool. She drew a deep breath, and stumbled out with it. "I think my father might be here?" 

The redhaired woman stood there, obviously taken aback by that awkward blurting out. 

{"What a greeting!"} Caeide thought, standing there in the doorway to their home. Searched the face, the eyes of the rather apprehensive and embarrassed young woman in front of her, she recognized traces of a familiar and much-loved face. She slowly smiled, nodded, and said "welcome. Come in, you must be tired after your journey," taking in the wrinkled and dusty dress, the small traveling bag at her side.

The redhaired woman turned her head back to the big room that lay beyond the door and called in a fond voice, one with just a trace of amused speculation in it, "Andrew, I do believe you have a visitor. Well, family, actually. Come make her welcome while I put tea together." 

Andrew, questioning look on his face, bounced into the living area, thankfully without tumbling over or crashing into anything, which wasn't a sure thing, no matter the years he'd lived here. He came to an abrupt stop, looking with shocked amazement at the young blonde standing there with a rather apprehensive look on her face.

Peter Newkirk was only a few steps behind, his jaw dropping in astonishment at the sight. {"Lord, it's 'elga to the life. Well, almost; there's something . . ."}

Andrew squeeked, "HELGA???!!"

And the young woman giggled at the look on his face, on the astonishment on the other man's face, and moved forward. 

"Not Helga. I'm her daughter, Helandra. Hers and . . . well . . . ". She paused, her nerve suddenly leaving her. He was very much like the description her mother had left, yet, seeing him in person was something quite different. And the other man? Yes, she recognized him as well, though she hadn't expected to find him here. The Englishman, Peter Newkirk. 

"And . . . yours?" The last wasn't so much a question of the reality; looking at him was in some ways looking into a mirror, but more a question if he was going to accept this sudden intrusion into his life.

Newkirk looked at her, saw that mischief in her eyes, saw that slightly narrow face and the familiar curve of her jaw, and turned to look at Andrew in disbelief. 

"ANDREW?? Bloody 'ell, Andrew! I don't bloody well believe it!!"

Another giggle, and the young woman came forward quickly and somehow, though no one could see how since it wasn't truly in her path, managed to stumble over the small spinning loom sitting next to the table. Andrew caught her just in time, hugging her to him, wide grin on his slightly narrow face, a grin mirrored on the face on the daughter he never knew he had. 

Newkirk burst out laughing. "Well, NOW I believe it! Just 'ow many times 'ave you managed to trip over that bloody thing, Andrew??!"

And Helandra Van stepped into the welcoming warmth of Haven, for a meeting that was far overdue. A meeting with the man who'd given her that look of incredulous innocence, her love for animals and things that went boom!, her smile of amazing sweetness. The man who had saved her mother from despair and worse. Andrew Carter, her father.


End file.
